How to Have More Time for Music?

You, me, we all have limited amount of time and energy. You probably have a full-time job or studies, a relationship, kids, friends and a whole lot of other stuff to keep you busy. With all else going on, how on earth can you find the time for crafting songs, let alone albums? Furthermore if you do find the time – where to summon the energy for making music after a long day of hard work and errands? How to have more time for music? You’re about to find out.

Planning & Timetable

Well, planning is the solution number one. Before you cast doubt upon this idea, hear me out. Create a timetable for yourself and reserve time for songwriting. Let me guess: you don’t have any time to reserve? Look closely and you’re likely to find that some of your tasks and errands might not be as important as they might first seem. Could you shift some of them to the next week? “Practise creative procrastination” as personal & business coach Brian Tracy so cleverly pointed out.

If your schedule is so utterly packed that you can’t seem to find time for a single session, seek tiny chunks of time here and there. Even if it’s just 10 minutes before or after something else, mark it to be your songwriting time. These 10 minute sessions add up quickly and before you know it, you’ve done hours and hours of songwriting. A little goes a long way. The key is to stick with what you’ve planned and to be consistent.

Goals & Vision

Setting yourself deadlines and goals is one of the smartest things you could do to hack your productivity. Having a clear vision where you’re heading with your music is essential. Whether it’s a song, an ep or an entire album you’re about to make. Goals and deadlines keep you focused, which is the entire point as your time is limited and precious.

Remember Parkinson’s Law, work fills the time you give to it. Respect the time you set for your songwriting process as you would do if you’d charge for it by doing it for someone else. In other words treat yourself as a client.

The Law of Three

Use the law of three. After every session think of three most valuable things to do next time. When the next time comes you start from the most important thing and move on. These tasks could be anything from figuring out a melody to a verse to recording guitars to your song. This way you’ll ensure you know immediately what to do and you can get straight at it.

If you can’t do all three in the given session, just leave the remaining tasks for the next time and come up with one or two more so you always got three tasks to do. Also get everything ready before you start your songwriting session. Prepare thoroughly so you don’t have to interrupt the flow.

Wake Up Early

One solution to a full packed schedule is to wake up early. You’d be surprised how much you can get done before everyone else even wakes up. By waking up early you have the time for yourself. This could be used just to relax a bit before you start your daily activities. Depending on how much earlier you wake up, you could use the free time for songwriting.

Either way, you’re much more ready to face the day than straight from bed. You tackle the problems at work quicker, get more done and feel more energized. Also when you discipline yourself to wake up earlier (and to go to the bed earlier) you’ll find that you’re getting more disciplined in other areas of your life as well and that you are gaining self-confidence on the side.

Stop Wasting Time on Social Media

Now it’s time for the final advice on time management: Stop using social media. Leave the phone in another room while working on your music. I understand that most of the people don’t want to give it up all together and that’s fine, but social media has become such a time killer and we don’t even recognize it.

Here’s an example from real life: I haven’t used social media at all in over three months now. Average person spent time on social media in 2017 approximately 135 minutes per day. That means I’ve saved 12150 minutes in total. That’s over 200 hours, talk about time saving!